


Too Colorful to Conceal

by LittleLostPieces



Series: Too Colorful 'Verse [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:54:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostPieces/pseuds/LittleLostPieces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis has worked hard to become a respected actor, too hard to let his theater career be derailed by an exuberant makeup artist with insanely long fingers and legs that go on for days, especially one that enjoys flirting as much as Harry does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Colorful to Conceal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supernope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernope/gifts).



> This fic would still be sitting, forgotten or abandoned, in my WIP folder if it weren't for Leah. It was such a train wreck in the beginning, but she helped me turn it into something presentable, brainstormed a new direction, and basically fixed everything that was wrong with it because she's amazing. :D
> 
> The title from from _Imperfect is the New Perfect_ by Caitlin Crosby.

If there is one thing Louis loves about working in the theater – there are about a million, but if he had to pick just one – it's the camaraderie and family atmosphere that working with a cast or company has provided him since he was in secondary school. Oh, Louis has his own family, a great family who has always been hugely supportive of his acting career, but there's just something next-level about theater. It's knowing that everyone is in it together, that they all have to do their jobs or the entire thing fails, that every single person is immensely important. Sharing all of the glory after shouldering each other's burdens is fantastic, as well.

He’s convinced himself that the thing he hates about film is that they are exactly the opposite. Everyone is completely focused on their own tasks, or they’re standing around in some corner with no job to do at all, with no smiling and none of the teamwork that bonds them all together over the course of an eight-month run. Though, to be fair, he’s never been on an actual film set before today and he’s only just parked his car fifteen minutes ago, so he’s basically talking out of his ass on this one.

Still, Louis will take his theater company over this big-budget world of self-indulgence any day of the week. That’s what he continuously reminds himself as he struggles to match stride with Eleanor, anyway.

“That's only because you've never managed to land any of the film roles you've auditioned for,” Eleanor deduces when he says as much, leading Louis past another throng of grouchy-looking people in headsets before turning to the door of a small warehouse.

That it takes a warehouse to hold all of the tertiary and extra actors for hair and makeup is either impressive or ridiculous, but Louis tells himself it’s the latter because the former would be admitting that Eleanor is actually right.

“'You have, in total, half a page of dialogue in a one hundred and sixty page script. I don't think now is the time to get all above your station, love.”

She smiles sweetly, far too sweetly to be truly sincere, and flounces through the room as though she owns this entire set. Louis is immensely proud of her for scoring a job that she really, really wanted, but someone has to keep her from throwing a strop on her second day of shooting. It's his job, as her best mate, to be that someone.

“Harry!” she shouts when they're still about twenty meters from any person.

The man at the last station by the wall still manages to hear her, turning on the heel of his boot to beam a gigantic smile their way. It's hard not to notice the way his legs stretch on for about a mile and a half, or the scarf that holds his wayward curls from his face. His skinny jeans and tour tee shirt aren't much of a surprise – in Louis' experience, most hair stylists and makeup artists fancy themselves rock stars on some level – but the way they fit is alright. More than alright, really.

This Harry has the wingspan of a pterodactyl when he stretches his arms and shouts, “My lovely Eleanor!” before catching her against his chest and hugging her tight. “I was beginning to think you'd demanded another artist after yesterday's mascara debacle.”

Louis watches from a fair distance, considering this lad who is now winking at Louis' friend, ushering her to an empty chair, resting his hands on her shoulders. He's the first person Louis has seen smiling, so he supposes that's a check mark in Harry's favor, but he's still part of a massive film crew, so he's breaking even at the moment. Okay, maybe the dimple helps tip the scales in his favor a bit.

“Alright, we've got thirty minutes and I need to grab another package of sponges, so go ahead and pull all that beautiful hair away from your face and I'll be right back, yeah?” He starts to jog off and then stops and turns back. “Hi,” he says, eyes fixed directly on Louis. “I'm Harry. I promise a more formal introduction when I return!” 

And then he's gone again, like a dust storm in the middle of, well, a lot of other dust storms. This place is absolutely mad.

Louis just chuckles, leaning against the counter as Eleanor sets her bag next to her chair and begins to pin her hair away from her face. “He seems energetic,” he says.

Eleanor rolls her eyes, barely minding the way Louis pulls his phone from his jeans to check his texts. “He's lovely. Yesterday was his first day, too, so we were nervous together. It was nice.”

“How do you get a job on this kind of set as a rookie?” Louis asks, typing a quick response to Zayn, one of the set designers in his company

“It's not the first time he's touched a brush. It's just the first time he's worked on a film,” Eleanor says, as though Louis is the silly one here.

He's not the one drooling over a floppy-haired makeup artist. Outwardly, anyway.

“How are we doing?” Harry asks when he returns a minute later, his face flushed from running wherever he's been. “You alright, beautiful?” he asks, resting his hands on Eleanor's shoulders again, rubbing them gently as he watches her finish twisting her hair onto head in the mirror. 

“I'm good. Make me gorgeous,” she requests in a tone Louis recognizes as her flirting voice. 

He doesn't bother fighting a dramatic roll of his eyes, though he does have the decency to clear his throat when Harry smiles at him over Eleanor's shoulder.

“You're already there, I think,” Harry insists, giving her shoulders a pat before stepping around in front of her and running his hands over her hair. “So, El, who's your friend?”

She giggles, fucking _giggles_ , and says, “This is Louis. I told you about him yesterday.” 

“Ah, right,” Harry nods, never looking up from the foundation he's applying to Eleanor's face when he adds, “It's nice to meet you, Louis,” over his shoulder.

Louis grunts his response and glances up from his phone long enough to catch the death glare Eleanor his giving him, though she's trying to keep her eyes closed so it's not at all intimidating, but quite hilarious instead. “Yeah. You, as well, though El didn't tell me about you yesterday,” he says.

He cringes a bit at the harshness in his words, but he doesn't have time to apologize before Harry is barking a laugh, his hand stilling against El's face. “Don't suppose she would, would she? Unless she was going to tell you about how I tried to blind her. So sorry about that again, babe.”

Eleanor just shakes her head and reaches one arm out to pat Harry's wrist. “I told you, occupational hazard. It's fine.” To Louis, she explains, “We were on a bit of a time crunch yesterday and Harry barely grazed the corner of my eye with a mascara wand. It was nothing.”

“Your eye wouldn't stop watering!” Harry insists.

“Because they're sensitive. It wasn't your fault,” Eleanor assures him, though it sounds to Louis like it absolutely was Harry's fault. He can't imagine Perrie ever poking him in the eye right before a show.

“I'm just glad it didn't swell. Your eyes are far too beautiful to be puffy and teary, aren't they?” 

She hums happily and Louis fights the urge to mock her mercilessly. That would probably make a terrible impression. Not that Louis is trying to make any kind of impression at all on the impossibly hot makeup artist. He’s not.

“So Louis,” Harry says suddenly, pivoting to dip his brush into an eyeshadow pan on the table. “El says you're in the theater?”

Louis nods, trying his best to look half as genuine as Harry seems to be. “I'm working on a revival of _The History Boys_ in the West End,” he says with a certain degree of pride because, well, it's something to be bloody proud of. He's been working toward the West End for the better part of a decade now, since before he completed his A levels, and he'll shout it to anyone who will listen that he's finally arrived.

“Really?” Harry asks, his brow furrowing as he meticulous tortures Eleanor's lashes with what appears to be a medieval curler. “My roommate from uni is working on that show. D'you know Zayn Malik?”

The same Zayn Malik who has just texted Louis? The one who has worked on the sets for three of Louis' shows since he arrived in London four years ago? The one whom Louis considers one of his closest friends amongst his theater crowd? “Yeah, Zayn's wicked,” he answers, smiling before he can tell himself to appear unaffected. 

“He is,” Harry nods. “Patience of a saint, too,” he adds. Louis doesn't miss the wink Harry throws at Eleanor before he whispers, “look up for me?”

She does as she's told, trying her best to hold still while Harry dusts setting powder beneath her eyes. “They went to art school together,” she explains, as though Harry is her new bestest friend in the whole world. It’s possible Louis is a bit of a jealous prick inside his own mind sometimes. Always. Whatever.

“You're the Harry that used to sexile him all the time?” Louis asks because it's the first, probably the only, thing he remembers Zayn mentioning about his former uni flatmate.

Harry shrugs shamelessly, guiding Eleanor's head to the side with one gentle, hooked finger. “Believe me, he paid me back in full once we'd moved down here.” He dabs a flushed pink color onto Eleanor's cheeks, chuckling as he works. “We lived together for our first year in London, too, and he's lying if he says he wasn't pulling just as much as I was.” 

“So you knew him before Perrie, I guess,” Louis says, though he can't actually imagine Zayn without his fiance. 

“I did,” Harry says with a nod, stepping back to study his work. “Did you know you've got a pretty fantastic face, El? Because you really do.” She flushes under his compliment and Harry winks again before looking up and over her head. “Hey, Louise! Check this for me?”

A spindly woman with platinum and lavender hair flips Harry off with a smile before barely coming to a stop at their station and considering Eleanor’s face with a tilt of her head. “She needs lashes today, Harry. She'll be in close ups. She also needs to be in hair in ten minutes, so no dawdling,” she says, darting off to answer the next person calling her name.

Louis almost makes a sarcastic remark about the abrupt nature of her visit, but he catches himself just in time to hear Eleanor say, “You can probably dawdle a bit. I was waiting in hair for an hour yesterday.” 

Harry smiles, reaching for a package of false eyelashes. “Are you trying to tell me you don't want to leave the pleasure of my company?” 

If Eleanor giggles one more time, Louis is going to say something about it. Far be it for him to embarrass his friend but, well, who is he kidding? He lives for embarrassing his friends. 

“So, Louis, what about you?” Harry asks suddenly.

“Huh?” he answers, causing both Harry and Eleanor to laugh.

Harry blows over the glue on the lash in his hand before turning his attention back to Eleanor. Louis doesn’t notice the way his plush lips pout with the motion, not even a little bit. Fuck, but Harry has a pretty mouth. Which sounds creepy, Louis realizes, and shakes his head to clear his thoughts, wishing he could remember the question.

Harry clarifies it for him. “Are you strictly a theater actor or is there a chance I might get you in my chair someday?”

It's probably not supposed to sound like a chat up line, Louis thinks. Probably. Harry's low, dripped-honey voice makes it sound like one, though. 

“Tempting as all this madness is,” Louis says, hoping he sounds half as sarcastic as he’s trying to be, “My heart belongs to the theater.”

“Don't let him fool you, Harry,” Eleanor interjects. “He says it's love of the theater that keeps him there, but I'm fairly certain it's his fear of rejection that keeps him from auditioning for films more than he does.”

“Rejection?” Harry asks, applying Eleanor's second lash while he chuckles. “I can't imagine casting directors aren't tripping over themselves to cast someone like you.”

While the statement is patently untrue – Louis has a special folder in his email for his seven rejection letters from said casting directors to prove it – he can't deny that Harry's confidence is a stroke to Louis' ego. 

After another coat of mascara, thankfully kept away from Eleanor's eyeballs today, Harry steps back and studies her face intently. “You were a masterpiece before you sat down, lovely. Now you're a movie star.” He checks his watch and nods in the general direction of the hair stylists. “With two minutes to spare even.”

Louis watches as Harry and Eleanor work in tandem to pull the pins from her hair and then Eleanor is standing and hugging Harry without touching her face to his shirt. “How do I look?” she asks.

“Beautiful,” Louis answers.

But Harry just tilts his head and asks, “How do you feel? That's the most important thing.”

There are practically hearts fluttering out of her eyes now. Louis groans, but it's hard to begrudge the smile that lights up every corner of Eleanor's face. 

“I feel really pretty, Harry. Thanks.”

“Break a leg, yeah? I'll see you for touch ups later.” 

Louis takes a few steps forward, pulling up even with Harry. “It was nice to meet you, Harry.”

The smile he aims at Louis is different than the one he gave Eleanor, softer somehow, less playful and more pensive. “It was really nice to meet you, too, Louis.”

Louis learns quickly that time on set passes in alternating blurs of chaos and stretches of agonizing boredom. Louis has trouble focusing his attention on any one thing for more than a few minutes and, while he'll not admit it out loud any time soon, he thinks that film sets are definitely different than theater, but maybe not as dreadful awful as he wanted to believe.

It has to do with the way everything runs so seamlessly once the cameras are rolling, of course. It has absolutely nothing to do with the way Harry smiles at him each time they pass throughout the day, or with the way he offers Louis a sandwich at lunch time, asking him a few off-handed questions about his life outside of work, and winking every time he runs away again. 

*

When Louis returns to rehearsals for his play two days later, he finds Zayn draped across the chair in his dressing room, typing furiously on his phone.

“Heard you met Harry the other day,” Zayn says without preamble.

“I did,” Louis confirms, stripping out of his coat and scarf. “Hello, by the way.”

Zayn makes a vague, waving gesture and continues concentrating on his screen. “What did you think of him?”

So they're going to talk about this while pretending not to talk about it, Louis supposes. He walks to the electric kettle on the far side of the room as he says, “He seemed nice. Very friendly.” Zayn grunts his affirmation. “Seemed really into El.”

Comically, Zayn's head snaps up, his legs swinging around so he's facing Louis with a weirdly intense expression. “Well that's. Hm.”

Louis' brow furrows as he leans against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. “What?”

“Nothing,” Zayn answers immediately, shaking his head and relaxing back into the chair. “No, I mean that's possible. I just haven't seen him date a woman since uni, but it's possible.”

“He hasn't had a date since uni? Have you seen his face?” Louis asks and then abruptly turns when he realizes what he's just asked.

“I've seen a lot more than his face, mate,” Zayn grumbles.

Even as Louis lifts the kettle, he glances over his shoulder with a teasing wiggle of his eyebrows. “Oh really?”

Distractedly, Zayn catches his lip between his teeth and shakes his head. “Wasn't like that. Just. Trauma. I don't speak of the things I unwittingly saw in the four years we lived together.”

Lifting the cup to his mouth, Louis shakes his head and chuckles. As far as he can tell, the dormitories and flats that Harry and Zayn shared over the years must have been the most hedonistic places in Manchester and London. Being as they're two of the most beautiful people Louis has ever seen, he's strangely fine with that. Maybe more than fine. He certainly wouldn’t mind Zayn speaking of what he saw, unwittingly or not.

“I didn't say he hasn't been on a date, by the way,” Zayn says suddenly, his eyes moving slowly toward Louis, a smug smile stretching over his face. “I said I haven't seen him date a woman.”

“Oh,” Louis says, sipping at his mug again. “ _Oh_.”

Well, that changes everything. Or maybe it doesn't change anything at all. Even when Louis tries to view the events of the other day through the filter of this new information, it still looks like Harry was into Eleanor. Maybe he's just one of those flexible, fluid people. Louis has heard they exist.

He crosses to his vanity, pulling a few folded pages from his messenger bag. “Do I need to warn El about this guy? Is she going to get hurt?”

Zayn snorts. “She's a grown woman, Louis. She can make her own choices. And I know Harry looks like a total douchebag hipster, but he's genuinely one of the nicest people I know.”

“He doesn't look like a douchebag anything,” Louis mutters, glancing over the pages in his hand. He doesn't even bother explaining himself when Zayn hums, as though he's figured something out. So Harry is fit and Louis appreciates that. They don't need to go on about something that actually means nothing.

“What is that?” Zayn asks, stretching as he stands, crossing to hook his chin over Louis' shoulder, perusing the script in his hands.

Louis finishes the sentence he's reading before he answers. “Sides for an audition Liam wants me to take. Some new series Ben Winston is producing for telly.” 

“Louis, that's great,” Zayn exclaims, pushing Louis' shoulder as he takes a step back.

“Probably won't get it, but Liam thinks the positive buzz from the play might help,” he says. 

Liam is always talking about things like _buzz_ and _hype_ and _having a steady and strong presence in social media_. Louis wonders sometimes why he needs to pay an agent when he could just use journalists and Twitter to promote himself. He often tells Liam that he’s lucky they’ve been friends since childhood or Louis would have no use for him at all. Liam is too kind, or possibly too smart, to argue the point.

Resting against Louis' vanity, Zayn fixes him with one of those stares that pierces all of Louis' defenses. “Do you want it?”

And that's the real question. For all of the bluster Louis blows about the theater, Eleanor was right when she told Harry that Louis fears the rejection. He's wanted roles before, only to have them slip through his fingers. This one is good, the entire series is so sharp and clever and funny. He would love to be a part of it. Getting his hopes up always leads to getting crushed in the aftermath, though.

“I don't want to want it,” he finally answers. “I do actually love the theater. It's more than enough. It's everything I've wanted since I was young. It's fine if I'm here for the rest of my life, really.”

Zayn only rolls his eyes at the prefab excuses. “Bro, the theater has been around for centuries. I'm fairly certain it's not going anywhere. You can always come back here, right?”

He's right, of course. The logical portion of Louis' brain knows that Zayn is absolutely right about this. The larger, more emotional, egotistical portion can't concede that point.

“Maybe,” is all he mutters, tossing the sides onto his vanity and returning to his script for this show. If he doesn't excel here, there's no point in wishing for another role anyway.

*

He does swallow his nerves and go through with the audition, though it has more to do with Zayn and Eleanor's thinly-veiled threats and less to do with his own courage. Also, Eleanor offers to buy lunch if he actually does it and Louis' always had trouble saying no to a free meal.

Eleanor is already at a small table toward the back of the cafe when Louis arrives. 

“How was it?” she asks before he's managed to slip out of his coat and situate himself in his seat.

“Good,” he answers automatically, straightening his jumper while he considers the truth in his answer. “It went really well, I think. I don't know.” He always thinks they go well, though. It could be another rejection letter to add to his collection for all Louis can tell at this point. “They were nice. I felt alright about it.”

Beaming, Eleanor reaches for his hand atop the table and says, “I'm sure you nailed it,” with so much confidence that Louis nearly believes it. “And speaking of nailing, guess who was asking about you this morning?”

He groans at the terrible joke, pulling his hand back to take the menu. “If the next words out of your mouth are not 'David Beckham,' I'm not interested.”

“Close,” Eleanor teases, winking when Louis glances up at her. “Harry.”

Louis snorts. “Prince Harry?” he asks innocently.

Eleanor's tone is affectionate when she says, “Idiot,” and swats at his arm ineffectually.

“Was it Harry Potter?” Louis continues because, to be honest, Eleanor is the most fun to rile up about pretty much everything.

“Stop being daft,” she insists with a pout, sinking back into her chair with her arms folded like a petulant child.

Resting his menu on the table, Louis gives her his most wide-eyed, sarcastic look. “Well you can't possibly mean your boyfriend, Makeup God Harry. There's no way he has time to ask about me _and_ fawn over your perfect face.”

“He's not my boyfriend, you tit.”

They're at the point where Louis can't honestly tell if she's playing along or if she's actually, truly pouting. Of course, this means he has to push further. It's the only way to know for sure. 

“I give it a week,” he says, glancing at his menu again. “The way you were mooning over him says it won't be long now.”

“I wasn't!” Eleanor insists, flailing her arms at her sides. “He is very charming, I'll grant you that, but I am not interested in him like that at all!”

“I'm not accusing you, love,” Louis assures her, his tone gentle now but probably still a bit condescending. “He _is_ charming. And believe me, you were not the only one of the pair of you mooning.”

“Stop saying 'mooning' please. It's such a strange word.”

“Flirting then.”

Eleanor's brow furrows as she stares at Louis across the table, her head tilting until a realization seems to dawn in her eyes. “You're not joking.”

“El, I was there,” Louis reminds her. “He was flirting with you. He couldn't stop talking about your face. And the winking. I was sure he had some sort of tick, really.”

When she explodes, Louis thinks it's a bit like an angry kitten. She's adorable, but also looks slightly unhinged. “He's a bloody makeup artist, Louis! It is his job to look at my face. He is supposed to make me feel good about myself. That. Is. His. Job.”

Though he wants to argue back, when she puts it like that it does shed a different sort of light on Louis' prior theories, one he probably should have seen from the start now that he thinks of it. “I mean, sure, but I know what it looks like when a man is flirting with intent,” Louis defends, not quite ready to concede defeat.

Eleanor, however, is about one thousand percent done with this entire conversation. “You obviously don't. Harry isn't really into women, Louis.”

Louis shakes his head. “Zayn says he dated girls in uni. That he's into both, everyone, I don't know. ”

“Well _Harry_ told me,” she emphasizes as to let him know that her information is more reliable than Louis', “that he doesn't identify as anything, that he's open to everything, but that he finds himself more drawn to the penis. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have one of those. I do not.”

It's automatic at this point, the way an image jumps to Louis' mind any time Eleanor says that word. He didn't actually mean to see her giving a blowjob on the balcony of their shared flat during their final year of uni, but he'd gotten sacked from his job and had come home early. Some things just can't be unseen, no matter how hard he cringes and fights to erase them.

“Stop it,” Eleanor warns, her face stern because she knows exactly where his mind is right now. “The point is that he was asking a lot of very pointed questions about your relationship status and whatnot. Even said I could give you his number if I wanted.”

“No,” Louis responds, probably a bit too quickly but there is nothing he can imagine more mortifying than calling someone purely on the word of a mutual friend. What would he even say? There are enough awkward moments in Louis' life, so just no.

Eleanor rolls her eyes, but the waitress arrives and thankfully provides enough of a diversion that Louis is able to steer the conversation into more neutral territory.

It's unfortunate, he thinks, because Harry was incredibly hot and also too charming for his own good. If Louis had met him in a more common locale, he thinks maybe they would have hit it off. But the entire scenario just seems so contrived, the timing so wrong, that he's sure they're better off just leaving things as they are.

*

A month into his run of _The History Boys_ , Louis gets a call from Liam while he's being fitted for new trousers. For fear of getting stuck with a pin in the bum, he ignores the call. Then he promptly gets four more.

“I'm a bit busy right now, Liam, can I call you back?”

“You got it,” is Liam's response.

“Okay,” he says, ready to disconnect the call until he hears Liam's voice shouting down the other end of the line. Raising the phone back to his ear, he says, “What? Liam, now is not a good time.”

“You got the telly role, you colossal pain in my ass!”

As it turns out, getting stuck with a pin in the bum does really hurt, but being not-rejected is a rather soothing balm.

*

Being a producer, Louis thinks, must pay pretty well. That’s probably not the most intelligent statement, but Louis is a little too awestruck by Ben Winston’s palatial estate to worry about it at the moment. His little car seems out of place in the circular drive, next to the manicured lawns and the three-story mansion stretched out in front of his windshield. 

It’s still sinking in, this idea that he’s part of the cast of an actual television series. At first, he was a bit afraid that it would be colder somehow, painfully different than his experience in the theater, but casual drinks with the rest of his co-stars at the producer’s house seems better than normal, not that Louis really knows how these things normally go.

He shoves his keys into his pocket and walks slowly toward the door, wondering if being ten minutes early is going to make him look too eager. He presses the doorbell and figures there’s nothing he can do about it now.

The last person he expects to see on the other side of the threshold is Harry, but there he is. Shirtless and stuffing the end of a banana into his mouth. Because Louis’ life is awesome.

“Louis! Welcome! Come in,” Harry greets easily, as if he’s been expecting Louis all night. 

Louis shuffles past, trying to think of something to say that won’t sound completely ridiculous. “I thought this was a cast do,” is what he settles for and then promptly wishes he could kick himself in the balls for being an idiot. 

Maybe Harry was only doing makeup until an acting job came through. Louis doesn’t know Harry’s life. He shouldn’t be making assumptions, especially about someone comfortable enough to walk through Louis’ new boss’s house half-naked.

If Harry is bothered by Louis’ statement, he doesn’t say so, shutting the door and swallowing the rest of his banana before he says, “Oh, it is. I’m not staying.”

So he’s walking shirtless around Ben’s house, but he’s not here to stay. “Oh.”

“Can I get you anything? How do you feel about cubed fruit?” Harry asks, walking around Louis to face him, smiling like this is the best thing that’s happened to him today. “I cut up a giant platter, probably too much, but once I got started it was like I couldn’t stop. Plus, it made the kitchen smell amazing.”

He tucks his hands into his pockets, his shoulders broad, his pectoral muscles flexing with the motion. It is impossible not to be distracted by Harry’s long, lean, tattooed torso. There are so many winged things. Birds on his collarbone and a moth, possibly a butterfly, covering most of his abdomen. Just so many large, random, winged things.

“Um,” is all Louis manages to say, which is the first sign of how thrown he is. Louis isn’t often at a loss for words.

It doesn’t deter Harry a bit as he leads Louis from the entry into the front room, complete with mahogany floors, a bar along the far wall, and a grand piano in the center. “You’re the first to arrive. Would you like a tour, or can I get you a drink maybe?”

Louis would answer, but he’s now distracted by the large pirate ship tattooed on Harry’s impressive upper arm. He’s also a bit taken with the swell of his shoulder, if he’s honest. It’s a good shoulder. 

“Or you can leave him alone and go put some clothes on,” Ben suggests, stepping out of what Louis assumes is his office. “Hello, Louis.”

They’ve only met twice - at both of Louis’ auditions - but there is a warmth and familiarity about Ben that instantly puts Louis at ease. He smiles genuinely and says, “Hello,” as he steps forward to shake Ben’s hand.

“Can I get you a drink while Harry wanders off to find a shirt?”

“Sure, that would be great,” Louis responds, laughing a bit when Harry rolls his eyes and rests his hands on his hips. “I was going to tell you yes, as well.” 

Ben turns, amused and fond when he nods to Harry’s bare chest. “The others will be here soon. Please get dressed.”

Stepping to Ben’s side and draping an arm easily across his shoulder, Harry says to Louis, “You think working with him will be great, but he’s dreadfully boring. I hope you don’t fall asleep during his script notes.”

The way Ben pinches Harry’s side and pushes him away feels intimate, too, somehow. If this is what Harry comes home to every night, it’s no wonder he wasn’t actually interested in Eleanor.

“Louis, you know Harry, right?”

Louis shrugs. “We’ve met, through a couple mutual friends.” 

“Maybe you can convince him to take the offer to join our makeup team for the show then.”

No, Louis can’t do that. Because convincing Harry to take a regular job on the set means that Louis has to see him every day. He’s doing a great job of convincing himself that he’s not interested, but he’s not sure he could if he had to look into Harry’s annoyingly handsome face every day.

“He thinks that giving me a steady job will encourage me to save some money and move out of his attic,” Harry explains in a tone that says he has no intention of leaving these posh digs.

Though it is absolutely none of his business, Louis hears himself beginning to ask, “Oh, so you two aren’t-,” before he can stop himself.

“Together?” Ben fills in the blank with a laugh. “No. My wife would not be very amused by that.”

Of course he’s married. It’s as clear as the gold band on his left ring finger. Funny how that escaped Louis’ notice until now. Also funny is the heat of either relief or embarrassment rushing up his neck. “I’m sorry,” Louis apologizes quickly because, at the end of the day, Ben is still Louis’ boss. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“That’s alright,” Ben assures him. “We get it a lot, actually.”

From behind, Harry hugs Ben’s neck and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “To be fair, you do look like an incredible sugar daddy.”

Swatting Harry away, Ben shakes his head with a laugh. “Alright, you deviant. You have ten minutes to get yourself together and out of my house. I won’t have you confusing the whole of my cast, stirring up salacious rumors. Go.”

With a final roll of his eyes, Harry smacks Ben’s ass and tears from the room with the maniacal laugh of a twelve-year-old super-villain. It sinks low in Louis’ gut that he is so, so fucked because Harry is, quite possibly, the most endearing man Louis has ever met. If he takes Ben up on his offer, if he comes to work on the show, there is no way Louis won’t manage to embarrass himself somehow.

As the rest of the cast begins to arrive, alcohol and banter flowing easily, Louis feels himself settle a bit. There aren’t many of them, only eight principle players, and Louis hasn’t met one that he doesn’t like. It seems that Ben and his crew of casting directors have done a fantastic job of picking people that not only embody their parts, but that also have a great off-screen chemistry. 

With none of his preconceived notions to fall back on, Louis allows himself to hope that this show works as well as some of his theater productions have.

He’s selecting a few pieces of fruit from the tray at the buffet when the doorbell rings. No one is running to answer it, so Louis turns and starts for the door himself.

Harry is a blur as he rushes past, turning at the last second to shoot Louis a fond smile. “I’ve got it, love,” he says, a bit breathless and flushed from flying down the stairs. He throws the door open and immediately wraps the man at the door, blond and shorter than Harry by at least a head, in a large hug. “Niall! Come in!” he shouts, far too exuberant and enthusiastic for a simple greeting.

The guy he’s hugging just snorts a laugh and pushes Harry away. “Get off, ya lunatic,” he finally says, his eyes shining and his smile broad. “We’re late already.”

Louis knows he should head back into the party where he belongs, but having Harry standing so close makes him feel rooted to his place. 

“Right,” Harry says with a nod, turning to steal a cube of mango from Louis’ plate. 

He pops it into his mouth and Louis knows, he fucking _knows_ that Harry is tracking the way Louis’ eyes are immediately drawn to it, the way he swallows when Harry licks his lips, and Harry smiles. Because Eleanor was right. Harry is a flirt. Shameless. 

“Try the melon, Louis. It’s fantastic,” Harry says with a wink and a pat to Louis’ shoulder before he walks out the door with Niall, leaving only the waft of his cologne for Louis to stare after.

Christ, Louis is fucked.

*

It only takes a couple of weeks for Louis to realize that telly has probably always been his true calling in life. The cast is extremely tight-knit, and multiple takes allow him risks that there was never time or opportunity for on stage. Sure, it loses a bit of the immediacy he loved with plays, but the perfectionist in him sleeps better at night without cycling through the myriad of ways he could have made his performance better. 

All-in-all, he’s grateful to Liam and Eleanor for forcing him into the audition in the first place, thinks he might just thank them both in his first BAFTA speech one day.

He drops his bag on the couch of his trailer - his own trailer with his name on the door and everything - and sighs as he looks over the schedule for the day. Hair and makeup in five minutes, rehearsals for the day’s first scene in three hours. The hurry-up-and-wait leaves something to be desired, but at least his trailer has a television. Maybe he can head over to Aiden’s for a cuppa before they have to start any actual work.

A knock on the door shocks him out of his own thoughts. No one on this sets knocks anymore. They’re only two weeks in and he’s already seen most of the cast naked and caught one of the wardrobe girls in the director’s trailer more than once. It’s a dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.

“It’s open!” Louis shouts, too comfortable on his sofa now to get up and let his visitor in. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise at this point. Nothing about Harry Styles showing up where he doesn’t belong, or at least where Louis isn’t expecting him, should be a surprise. Somehow, it still is.

“Stalker,” he says, lazily smiling when Harry heaves a massive makeup kit up the trailer steps and lets the door clang shut at his back.

“What can I say?” Harry returns with a shrug, walking easily through Louis’ trailer as though he’s been here loads of times before. “I missed your beautiful face, love,” he shouts down the hallway.

With a groan, Louis stands, smiling in spite of himself. Harry leaves a familiar scent in his wake, cologne too expensive for a lowly makeup artist, so Louis can’t be blamed for following it.

“Where’s Chloe?” he asks of his usual hair and makeup stylist.

Harry just shrugs, busy unpacking his makeup on top of Louis’ counter. “She’s called out sick or eloped or something. I don’t know. Ben just rang me this morning and said I needed to be here by nine.”

“Right,” Louis says with a nod, settling into his chair to watch Harry work. 

It’s different than he thought it would be, Harry’s fingers nimble and sure as he sorts the things he’ll be needing, constantly referencing the Polaroids taped to the mirror and occasionally holding a pan of foundation or powder to it. 

When he stills, rubbing his hands together and turning to Louis, Harry stops short. “What?”

“What what?” Louis asks right back.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest and leans his hip against the counter. “Like you’re surprised that I’m actually a competent professional.”

And, okay, maybe Louis is a bit surprised by that. He’s seen Harry work all of one time, and it’s not as though it’s hard to make Eleanor beautiful. He’s always seemed like a bit of an overgrown puppy, if Louis’ honest. Today, he seems to have a focus he didn’t in their previous meetings.

“Well, you’ve not done a competently professional job just yet, have you?” he answers instead, smiling cheekily when Harry narrows his eyes.

Turning his back, he grabs a few towels and motions for Louis to sit back. “Shouldn’t insult the man about to paint your face for television, Louis. That’s not smart at all.”

He wiggles his eyebrows and Louis laughs in spite of himself. It’s impossible not to be charmed by his stupidly adorable face, really. Which he supposes is part of the job. It’s easier to feel good about yourself when you’re in a generally good mood.

“Alright then,” he concedes, settling back and relaxing his shoulders as Harry tucks the towels into the collar of Louis’ shirt. “You’re the best makeup artist to ever walk the earth on two incredibly long legs, Harold. It was silly of me to ever doubt you.”

With a happy nod, Harry steps in front of Louis. He tilts his head, the corners of his lips turning down a bit. “Does that mean you think there are dogs who could do a better job than me? Something else that walks on four legs instead of two?”

The laugh escapes Louis’ throat before he can stop it. “I think that means you think too much. It was meant to be a compliment.”

“I’ll take it then,” Harry says with a satisfied nod, turning at his waist to grab what he needs. 

It’s not that Louis means to catch the sliver of pale skin revealed between Harry’s shirt and his jeans when he moves. He doesn’t mean to notice the way Harry’s muscles stretch and strain beneath the thin fabric of his gray tee. He really doesn’t mean to look any further down, to catch cut of his hip bones as they disappear beneath his tight, black jeans. It’s just that he has two working eyeballs and Harry is standing very close. That’s all.

He hates the fact that he feels a bit flushed when Harry turns back around and rests his finger under Louis’ chin. “Alright, just put your head back and close your eyes for me.”

Louis snorts.

“I am trying to do my job here, Louis.”

Prying one eye open, Louis smiles wider at the indignation on Harry’s face. “Sorry,” is all he says, biting his lips to keep them together. “Won’t happen again.”

It’s probably strange that Louis has never realized just how intimate makeup application can be. Perrie always made him laugh, back when they were working together on the play. Chloe blasts all sorts of weird music that Louis has never heard but has learned to love anyway. He’s not used to quiet makeup rooms, to noticing the size or pressure of the artist’s fingers against his skin, the scent of soap on the hands massaging moisturizer into his face.

“This show makes you anxious, huh?” Harry asks suddenly.

Louis jerks out of his grasp on instinct. “What?” he asks, voice sounding defensive to his own ears.

“Your skin,” Harry says with a shrug, reaching into his belt and producing a flat brush with a long handle. “It’s just there’s more spots around your chin and hairline than there were the last time I saw you. Bit darker under your eyes. I thought maybe the stress of a weekly show might be more than you imagined.”

While Louis thinks maybe he should be offended, he’s mostly embarrassed that Harry has noticed the tell-tale signs of his recent insomnia. He’ll be damned if he’s going to admit that, though. “I did eight live shows a week in theater. This is a holiday, believe me.”

Harry catches his bottom lip between his teeth, tamping back the words that Louis can practically see trying to fall out of his mouth. Instead, he dips his brush into a pan on the table and steps closer to Louis once again. “Look up at the ceiling for me?”

Louis looks up as instructed and reminds himself that this is Harry’s job, that being charming and flirty and helping to put his clients at ease is what he does with everyone. It’s not personal and there’s no reason for Louis’ heart to be hammering in his chest, no reason for his skin to feel hot everywhere Harry touches. That’s just silly really.

Thinking back on that first day, the day Louis met Harry, the day he was making Eleanor up to be a movie star, Louis realizes that Harry is strangely silent here. In this secluded trailer without the distractions of a thousand other people, he works quickly, dilligently, without words. He bites at his lips a lot - which, distracting - and furrows his brows as he paints concealer into the hollows beneath Louis’ eyes and over the spots that dot his chin, the ones Louis can never seem to be rid of these days.

He reaches for an airbrush machine, older than the one Chloe uses but the same in principle, clearing his throat when he speaks for the first time in unending minutes. “Can you turn your face just a,” he stops himself and guides Louis’ chin to the left. “There we go.” His voice is rough when he adds, “You’re used to this, yeah?”

Louis nods, allowing his eyes to drift closed as he leans back in his chair. “Tickles a bit at first,” he says, repeating the first thing Chloe told him on their first day of shooting.

“Yeah, a bit,” Harry agrees with a chuckle. “But I think it can be quite soothing, as well.”

Louis opens his eye to find the airbrush hovering suspiciously close to his eye. He flinches and then smiles up at Harry. “You do it to yourself a lot then, do you?”

Harry catches the innuendo, smirking as he rests one hand atop Louis’ head. “Have to learn which technique works best yourself before you can do it to someone else I always say.”

Lips quirking in spite of himself, Louis allows his eyes to shut once more. “Alright then,” he says, chuckling as he leans further back and tilts his face upward. “Show me your best technique.”

Though his eyes are closed, Louis can virtually _feel_ Harry’s smile above him. The first spray of color against his face always makes him cringe, but the familiarity of it takes over almost immediately. 

When he’s finished, when the room’s gone quiet again without the whispered purr of the machine, Harry says, “I don’t know whether I’m disappointed or impressed that you didn’t make a ‘spray on the face’ joke there.”

He doesn’t intend to guffaw like a loon, but Louis can’t stop the reaction from happening, his stomach bunching with the force of it. “I’m disappointed I didn’t even think of it,” he admits with a shake of his head. “I’m slipping.”

“It’s fine,” Harry assures him, sponging the airbrushed foundation on Louis’ forehead to even it out a bit. “I’ve been told I can be rather distracting.”

“That must be it,” Louis concedes with as much sarcasm as he can muster. He thinks he might fall a bit short, but Harry is kind enough not to mention it.

It only takes a few more minutes for Harry to finish up, brushing some setting powder over Louis’ face and stepping back, holstering his brush like a gunfighter. “There you are,” he says, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “Almost as perfect as you were before.”

“Almost?” Louis asks with a raised eyebrow, pushing himself up out of his chair as he considers his own face in the mirror. Harry is good at what he does, Louis can’t deny that much.

Shrugging, Harry says, “I prefer my men natural, I think,” he says.

Louis wants to protest that he’s not Harry’s man, that he’s not one of the many who have fallen prey to his flirtation and charm and mess of wayward hair, but something keeps the words from falling out. Instead, he says, “Thanks.”

Harry considers him silently for a moment. It’s more disconcerting than the lines and compliments ever are. “El said she’d give you my number,” he finally says. “Did she?”

Louis nods, though she didn’t. She would have, though, and he figures that’s close enough. He can’t find the heart to tell Harry he didn’t actually want it. 

“Why didn’t you call?”

And the thing is, it’s nearly impossible to lie to Harry, especially when he’s standing right in front of Louis with that sad, puppy expression on his sincere, little face. “Wasn’t sure you meant it,” he offers, though it sounds weak to his own ears. “You flirt for a living, Harry. Make people feel good about themselves, give them confidence to do their jobs. It’s who you are.”

Harry looks genuinely hurt for the first time since Louis’ known him, not a hint of a playful smile anywhere to be seen. “I apply makeup for a living, Louis. That’s my job. That’s what I _do_. I started doing that job because, well, bringing out the natural beauty that everyone has seemed like a nice thing to do. You rarely meet people who couldn’t use a bit of a confidence boost now and then, especially in this business. So yes, it’s my job to make you look and feel as good as your character feels and looks in the script, but that’s not actually who I am, and it is absolutely not my job to give you my number or want to take you to dinner some time.”

Well, when he puts it like that.

There is a knock on the door just as Louis begins to respond. Without waiting for an actual invite, a PA is popping her head into the trailer with a harried look on her face. “I need you on set in twenty minutes, Louis. You still have to get to hair and wardrobe. Please hurry.”

She leaves as quickly as she came. When Louis turns back to Harry, he’s packing his kit and resolutely not looking in Louis’ direction. “You better get going. I’ve kept you too long already.”

Because he doesn’t actually know what else to say, Louis nods and leaves his trailer without another word. 

*

It occurs to Louis that obtaining Harry’s number from Eleanor and calling him to apologize for his assumptions is probably the right thing to do. He thinks about it a few times, genuinely considers doing it, but the series takes off and there are interviews and photoshoots, doors of opportunity open all around him, and there’s just no time. 

It’s not as though someone like Harry, with his personality and his perfect face, is going to have much trouble forgetting Louis, either.

*

As the three-month shooting schedule for the series draws to a close, Louis finds himself faced with a dilemma. A part of him wants to return to the theater, to take another run at a musical or a comedy this time, to see if if the skills he’s acquired on television will serve any purpose on the stage.

The larger part of him can’t say no to the film role he’s offered. That larger part of him is also known as Liam, though Louis can’t deny that the idea of playing a space pixie, one who runs through the planets causing mischief and loving it, is not the worst way to spend his downtime. 

The waking up at four to be in makeup by five when shooting doesn’t begin until ten might be, though. 

As a child, prosthetics seem like the coolest thing in the world. As a grown man who maybe drank too much at the series wrap party last night, it’s torture. At least this is just a screen test, a trial run before shooting starts, so the sun has already risen and it’s not quite as bad as it will be every day for the next month.

He finds the makeup trailer fairly easily, takes a moment at the door to appreciate the fact that he is a principle actor in a feature film for the first time in his life, to file away all of the rejection and the missed chances that have lead him to this place, and the yanks the door open.

“Ever the professional, this one,” Harry says, pivoting on his heel with a smile. “Right on time,” he adds, checking his watch and then winking. “Welcome to my secret lab that is neither secret nor scientific in any way.”

It’s going to stop being a surprise eventually, Louis tells himself. He’s going to expect it one of these days. Until then, he can pretend because he’s an actor, dammit.

“Hello, Harry, you alright?” he asks, leaning into the handshake Harry offers before allowing his focus to shift to the counter in front of them. 

“Alright, yeah. Excited,” he adds, rubbing his hands together before casting another glance at the door. “I think you’re going to like the concept I’ve worked up for your character, Louis. It’s so cool.”

There are rubber pieces of distorted face all over the table. That’s a bit disconcerting.

“You came up with it?” Louis asks, crossing his arms over his chest as he raises an eyebrow in Harry’s direction. “Workin’ your way up from lowly assistant, I suppose?”

Harry blushes, honest-to-god flushes pink, lowering his eyes and catching his bottom lip between his teeth when he nods his affirmation. “Pays to have friends in high places sometimes,” he says with a shrug, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Niall’s a friend of mine from uni. We’ve been pestering Ben about this script for years now,” he says.

Right. Louis thought that the director of the film looked familiar in casting, but he could never quite place him. Harry’s words spur the memory of that night at Ben’s house, back before they started the series, and the little blond bloke that picked Harry up that night. Of course.

“So this is like a big budget student film then?” Louis asks, smiling as he sinks into the chair and rests his feet against the edge of the counter.

Harry leans his hip near Louis’ feet and nods. “You could say that. Have you seen Zayn yet? He’s around here somewhere, been working on the sets for ages now. I’m not sure he’s slept since we got the green light to make this thing.”

If he’s honest, Louis hasn’t talked to Zayn recently, but that’s not unusual. They’ve been working together sporadically for years, but they’ve never been the kind of mates that catch up when they’re not collaborating on a project. They’ll go for a drink and fill in the gaps and it will be fine. If Louis was nervous about his first feature film role - and he was, though he’d never admit it aloud - knowing that Zayn is around puts him at ease.

Also helping him relax is the fact that Harry seems to have either forgotten their previous conversation or he’s alright with ignoring it all together. If he can move forward as though it never happened, as though Louis didn’t inadvertently offend him and his profession, then so can Louis. With all of the time they’ll be spending together in this little room, it’s good that nobody’s holding on to a grudge.

“Alright, so here’s the sketch,” Harry announces suddenly, grabbing a large piece of poster board and presenting it to Louis like a masterpiece.

It’s kind of amazing. Obviously, it’s him - or a ridiculously cool cartoon rendering of him - with pointed ears, more finely defined features, and an soft blue tint to his skin. The character is shirtless, save for a series of silver wires and metal pieces that twine around his arms and chest, centered on a shining blue stone in center of his sternum. It matches the headpiece, something of a post-apocalyptic, space crown. 

It’s no secret that Louis has been in love with Puck from _Midsummer’s Night_ since he first read the play in secondary school. The fact that this character is so reminiscent of him, but in fucking _space_ , is the reason Louis agreed to audition for the part in the first place. Seeing him like this, though, so real and just a couple of hours away from being an actual reality, is pretty damn cool. 

“Harry, this is,” he starts and then shakes his head as he hands the drawing back. “Let’s get started.”

Harry’s already got the first prosthetic in his hands, grinning like a child with a brand new toy. “Three, two, one,” he teases, stepping forward to size the piece to Louis’ cheekbone.

 

*

 

The problem with extensive makeup isn’t the makeup itself. Sure, it gets a bit hot and itchy at times, but that’s alright. He can deal with that. It’s just that he has to sit still for _so_ long and he thinks he might be going a little mad.

“You’ve only been here for forty minutes,” Harry reminds him, tapping at the corner of the chin piece with the edge of a sponge. “You realize this is going to take, like, three more hours?”

Though Louis groans, he has to admit that it could be worse. Harry has the cheesiest sense of humor, but he also has the most endearing guffaw of a laugh. What could be an extremely awkward silence is interrupted by punches of laughter that seem to come from nowhere and hover around the trailer for ages. He tells long, rambling stories that take forever and never actually reach a destination, but his voice is soothing and soft, so it’s alright really. Better yet, when Louis gives him a bit of cheek, Harry replies with an obnoxiously sarcastic shout that catches Louis off guard and sends a strange thrill of fond pride straight through his chest.

It’s just. Harry’s alright. He’s really, really okay. 

At the halfway point, when they’re waiting for the prosthetics to dry and for Harry’s assistant to arrive with costuming, Louis is standing behind his chair and drinking a cup of tea. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and can’t help laughing. 

“This entire industry is fucking mental,” he deduces, shaking his head as he takes another sip from his tea cup. There are silicone pieces stuck to every angle of his face, clinging to his skin with medical-grade adhesives, obvious in their lack of color, making him look a bit like an unfinished toy in Santa’s workshop. 

He’s getting paid for this.

“I promise it will look more natural when we get the paint on,” Harry insists, fiddling with several pots of bright colors and an airbrush.

His words hang between them for a moment, their full meaning sinking in before Louis barks an undignified laugh and Harry joins him with a genuine, dimple-popping grin. 

“Natural. Right,” Louis teases, draining the last of his tea as the door flies open and a sleepy boy with fly-away purple hair charges into the trailer.

“We’re probably going to have to pin these because I’m almost certain they’re too big,” he states in a thick Australian drawl, dumping a pile of fabric onto the counter before turning to face Harry. “Caroline says she can fix it easily but she left some room for his, um,” he stops and furrows his brow, “I’d rather not say the adjective she used to describe his bum being as he’s standing right there.”

Harry laughs, quick and sharp like a bullet piercing the air, and Louis can’t help smiling. “I hope it was bootylicious. Please say she used bootylicious. That’s the only adjective that I’ll accept.” He winks at Louis over the assistant’s head. 

Though he rolls his eyes, Louis makes his way back to the chair, wiggling said bum as he goes, and flops down easily. “I don’t think you’re ready for this-,” he starts to say, cutting himself off when the assistant tosses a skeptical look between the pair of them. “Anyway, let’s crack on, shall we?”

“We shall,” Harry says with a nod, turning to his assistant. “Thanks, Mikey, but I think I’ve got it from here. Can you tell Niall that we’ll be ready in about an hour?”

Wordlessly, the assistant scuttles from the room as though he can’t be away from them fast enough. Louis would be offended, he thinks, if he wasn’t so bloody glad to be alone with Harry again.

“Alright, Lou,” Harry says, airbrush in hand as he steps between Louis’ spread thighs and presses a testing finger to the ridges along Louis’ brow bone. “Let’s make you blue-tiful.”

Louis snorts so hard it hurts his nose.

*

In the end, Louis’ skin glows a more luminescent purple than blue. Harry strays from the original concept a bit, insisting that the initial coloring made Louis look a bit like a dodgy _Avatar_ extra. Louis will admit he was a bit skeptical of the sparkling silver flecks Harry added at the end, afraid he’d look more like a stripper or, worse, a dodgy _Twilight_ extra, but in the finished screen test they look ace.

“I love ‘em,” Niall states easily, arms crossed as he circles Louis, eyeing every inch of him critically. It should probably be a bit uncomfortable, but Louis isn’t sure Niall could ever make anyone uncomfortable. “Looks like residue from the stars of a thousand galaxies, Harold. Nice work.” He rests a hand on Louis’ shoulder, atop the chrome-painted Styrofoam of his chest plate, and asks, “How do you feel? Anything uncomfortable? Because you look wicked, bro.”

Louis considers the question, looking up to catch the hopeful look in Harry’s eye. “I feel good,” he answers honestly. Well, almost honestly. 

The full truth would be to say that he actually feels ridiculously sexy, like he could seduce anyone in the room despite the fact that he’s purple and blue and covered in glitter dust, but Niall doesn’t need to know that. Nobody needs to know that.

“Perfect, okay,” Niall exclaims, clapping his hand against Louis’ shoulder before turning to his camera man. “Let’s wrap it up for the day. There are pints callin’ my name and I’m gonna throw up if I think about everything that needs to be done before tomorrow morning.” To Harry, he says, “Zayn’s comin’ too. You in?”

Harry turns immediately to Louis, as though he’s an obvious part of this circle now. “What do you think, Lou? You in?”

Before he can talk himself out of it, Louis takes the opportunity he should have made for himself months ago. He nods once and then follows Harry off of the set and back to the trailer, where they’ll begin the arduous process of removing all of this makeup. It’s possible he’s been dreading this more than the actual application.

It takes just under an hour with Mikey’s help. Now that they’re finished, the young assistant seems much more relaxed than he was before, enough that time flies as fast as the banter between the three of them.

When Louis is grabbing his bag and waiting for Harry to finish packing his kit for the night, he clears his throat and says, “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” without actually thinking. If he stops to think, he’ll back out of saying what really does need to be said. “I should have. I was just. Well, I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

Harry’s smile is kind when he turns and moves toward Louis, brushing past him to open the door. He accepts the apology with a sincere, “You’re here now,” and that’s the end of that. 

*

Pints at the local, dingy pub become a thing. Occasionally other members of the crew will come with them, as well as other cast members, if they don’t have something more pressing in their diaries. The shooting schedule is tedious, but knowing that they’ll end their long weeks here, floating on the wave of productivity and the buzz of good beer gets the entire lot of them through without much complaining.

Louis invited Eleanor since Zayn said he was inviting Perrie, but they were both busy. Liam’s at Louis’ side, which is comforting in an odd way. He’s always considered Zayn a mate, but they’re not as close Zayn is with Niall and Harry so it’s nice to have someone around that Louis can call his own friend. Of course, Liam’s been to enough of these get-togethers now that he’s as much a part of the group as Louis is. It’s nice. He likes working with people that he can also enjoy outside his professional life.

Currently, his arm is draped over the back of Harry’s chair while Harry and Niall recount a night of debauchery back in uni. It doesn’t mean anything - just a comfortable place to rest his arm is all - but Harry keeps leaning into the absent touches of Louis’ fingers against his back and it’s. It’s nice, is what it is.

Harry’s number is in Louis’ phone now, but Louis hasn’t used it. There’s no real need, seeing as they spend every day together now, but it helps to ease Louis’ conscience knowing it’s there. He tells himself that he’ll use it, take Harry up on a dinner offer or extend one of his own, when this project is finished. 

“D’you need another?” Harry asks suddenly, tapping the side of Louis’ bottle as he twists to stand from his chair.

Louis just shrugs, not bothered either way, and watches as Harry makes his way up to the bar. 

He always looks good, Louis can admit, but there’s something different about him tonight. His usual skinny jeans are skinnier, his boots shinier. His standard black tee shirt has been replaced by a soft, blue jumper, and the scarf he normally uses to tie his hair back is conspicuously absent. He just looks next level and it’s hard not to follow the breadth of his shoulders and the swagger of his hips as he moves through the crowd.

“...and you’re not listening to a word I’m sayin’, are ya?” he finally hears Niall say when Harry is engulfed by the crowd and no longer visible.

Louis blinks. “I’m listening,” he insists.

“Pretty sure you weren’t, since I wasn’t talkin’ about Harry’s ass.”

It’s worth talking about, Louis thinks. A nice little bubble, barely there but highlighted by the stretch of his jeans across the curve of it. He probably shouldn’t say that out loud, though, so he settles for glaring instead.

“I was just asking what you have lined up next, since you’re done shootin’ next week,” Niall clarifies.

Louis’ stomach sinks. He’s known, of course, that his time on this set has to end but he’s been doing a fair job of forgetting about it as it makes his stomach do an unpleasant flipping thing. With a shrug, he nods toward Liam. “Ask the man in charge. I just go where I’m told.”

Liam laughs because, to be fair, Louis rarely just does what he’s told. But he can’t be bothered to care about the laughing at the moment. Harry is on his way back, cheeks flushed from the heat of the bodies gathered around the pub, smiling so hard his dimple is popping out. 

Great, now Louis’ stomach is doing the unpleasant flipping thing. Dammit, Niall.

He tries like hell to shake it, to ease back into conversation and look like he’s actually involved instead of lost somewhere inside his own head, but every time Harry’s arm brushes against Louis’ or their thighs touch under the table, he’s falling down the rabbit hole again.

He’s so consumed with his own thoughts that he startles and jumps when he feels Harry’s breath against his ear. “You alright?” he whispers, rough and full of concern.

Louis blinks, like rising out of a fog that he hadn’t realized was settling, and shakes his head. The smile he offers feels thin and fake. “Fine, me. Yeah, I’m alright.” He cringes because, fuck, he’s a better actor than that.

Harry’s fingers are nimble and gentle against his neck when he says, “I’m going to get some air. You should join me.”

And then he’s gone, like he’s never said anything at all.

He wants to get up, Louis does. He wants to follow Harry into the night and straight home, actually, but he just stares after him. 

“You should probably go, mate. Don’t wanna let him slip through your fingers again, do you?” Liam says, nudging him with an elbow and making no attempt to stay quiet. 

Swallowing hard, Louis nods and slips out of his chair. He doesn’t dare look at anyone at the table, gathering his wits and trying to shake off the feeling that this is more than a trip outside for a little air, that this is the inevitable conclusion to meeting Harry Styles in the first place, that it’s been leading up to this for nearly a year now.

Harry is leaned against the wall, just to the left of the door, scrolling through his text messages, when Louis steps outside. He looks up immediately, smile stretching slow and lazy across his face as he smiles. “Just so we’re clear, I didn’t really need air.”

Louis takes a step toward Harry, scratching at the back of his own neck when he asks, “Are we finally doing this?”

“I was trying to wait until shooting ended. That seemed more professional. But, goddammit, you’re impossible to resist,” Harry laughs, hooking a finger through one of Louis’ front belt loops and tugging him forward until he stumbles into Harry’s chest. “If I had my way, we would have done this months ago. You know that, right?.”

He’s right. Of course he’s right. Louis’ never been one to readily accept defeat, though.

“Maybe,” He concedes with a slight nod. “But you were so young back then. I thought you needed some time to mature.”

Harry’s laughter is brash, far too loud for the night, rattling until his chest vibrates against Louis’, his fingers toying with waistband of Louis’ jeans. He presses a kiss into the top of Louis’ head, a friendly gesture that is out of place while Louis feels far less than friendly, and then leans his head against the wall again. “So, your place or mine?” When Louis takes a little too long to consider the question, Harry adds, “He’s not even in the country right now. He won’t hear anything.”

It’s a bit scary, how well Harry seems to know Louis and the insides of his mind at the moment. It’s just that he kind of owes the entirety of his on-screen career to Ben - he’s producing this film, and there’s been an order for a second series of the show, as well - and Louis isn’t sure if he could face the man again if he was overheard fucking in the attic. That Harry knows that without being told either settles or unnerves Louis completely and he’s honestly not sure which it is yet.

He’s so flushed and happy, content to just rub gently at Louis’ sides while he considers all of the angles and makes his decision, as beautiful as he’s been since day one yet even moreso tonight, and Louis isn’t sure he’ll be able to make it to the attic at all.

“Mine,” he decides, nodding as Harry squeezes their joined hands. “Definitely mine.”

With nothing more than a nod in return, Harry pushes off of the wall and leads Louis to his car. 

The drive is silent, save for the heavy bassline thrumming quietly from the stereo. Harry’s hand tangles with Louis’ against Louis’ thigh, his thumb tapping against the back of Louis’ hand along with the rhythm. The tension is palpable, nearly suffocating, and the fact that neither of them can find a single thing to say only makes it more unbearable. Louis wants to crack a joke, to say _something_ to shatter this heavy silence, but he just can’t.

It’s bordering on awkward by the time they reach Louis’ flat, a decent sized two-bedroom that is just cluttered enough to be embarrassing. He’s been thinking about hiring a cleaner for months but he’s been busy. As he unlocks the door and closes it behind Harry, he wishes he’d learned to be a bit more organized.

“Sorry for the mess,” he mutters, kicking a shoe under the couch as he rushes around to straighten the mess on the coffee table. 

It occurs to him that this is a bit ridiculous, straightening up while Harry stands a few feet away, arms crossed and an amused smile playing over his face. It’s so stupid, but Louis’ entire body is thrumming with nervous energy now that Harry is here, now that this is actually happening, and he can’t make himself stop.

“Do you want tea?” he asks, his voice cracking a bit as he turns for the kitchen. 

Tea? What in the world is he thinking? He wants to kick himself, possibly run his face into the wall, but everything is so jumbled in his head right now that he’s not sure he could even connect if he aimed himself at it. What’s that saying? Something about hitting the broad side of a barn? Who knows? Not Louis, that’s who. God, he’s losing it.

He jumps a bit when Harry’s hand settles on his arm. “No tea,” he whispers, voice gruff and breath hot against Louis’ ear. 

He allows himself a deep breath, sagging against Harry’s chest. “Right,” he says, turning his face up to find the same kind eyes Harry has shined his way since they met. “Not here for tea.”

“I’m nervous, too,” Harry admits, his lips quirking at the edges as he eases his arms around Louis’ waist. “‘ve wanted this for so long, Louis,” he adds, dipping his head to capture Louis’ lips in what Louis hopes is only the first of many stellar kisses. 

Because, fuck, Harry can kiss. His mouth is soft, aggressive and pliant all at once, taking and giving in equal measure until Louis is sure his legs will buckle. He moans into Louis’ mouth, his hips rolling forward as he brings one hand up to hold Louis’ head in place.

“Bedroom,” Louis gasps when Harry finally pulls back for air, his voice wrecked already. Jesus but this kid. “Better in the bedroom.”

Harry nods, a glazed and dazed look in his hooded eyes. He loops one arm around Louis’ neck and tangles the fingers of the other hand through Louis’. It’s strangely innocent and intimate. “Lead the way,” he says, words barely audible before he goes back to mouthing at the column of Louis’ neck.

They make it to the bedroom without stumbling into a wall or collapsing in the corridor, but it’s a near thing. Tumbling to the unmade bed, Louis groans when something hard stabs into the small of his back, rolls until he can extract the shoe and throw it across the room.

Harry laughs, his eyes lighting up with it as he stands and strips his shirt over his head. Louis lifts up on his elbows, watches the show as Harry unbuttons his jeans and wiggles them down his legs. 

“You gonna join me or what?” Harry finally asks when he’s down to his boxer shorts and Louis is still staring, fully dressed. 

He’d like to, but he’s not entirely certain he can move at the moment. Harry’s thighs are thicker than he imagined them to be, muscled like a runner’s, his body tapered and sculpted and so blooming perfect that Louis’ mouth waters with the possibilities.

Without waiting for Louis to respond, Harry crawls onto the bed between Louis’ spread thighs and stretches his body warm and taught along Louis’. “Alright, we’ll do it your way,” he teases, grinding his hips against Louis’ until Louis’ head falls back and his entire body flushes with the heat of it. “Just rub off, yeah? Until you come in your pants? Make you all messy and sticky and uncomfortable.”

Louis’ nose scrunches. “What? No.” He pushes on Harry’s shoulder until Harry rolls onto his side, laughing. The idea of rubbing off against a naked Harry is quite enticing, to be fair, but Louis would rather not be uncomfortable and sticky in his jeans, thanks so much. It doesn’t occur to him until much later that he’s playing into Harry’s hands here, that the statement was only meant to entice him into stripping off anyway.

By the time he gets it, though, they’re both gloriously naked and pressed together in a tangle of limbs and skin that has Louis heating from the inside until he fears he might burst into flames. He pants for air against Harry’s neck, too concerned with the building friction in his belly to worry about Harry’s manipulation techniques.

“Fuck,” Harry breathes against his ear, rolling onto his back and dragging Louis atop him while still rutting his dick against Louis’ stomach. “This is so unfair,” he whines.

Louis stops moving, gripping Harry’s wrists tight in his hands and raising them above Harry’s head to hold them firm against the light green sheets. “What’s unfair, love?” he asks, smiling at the way Harry sinks like a puppet with cut strings in Louis’ hold. 

He licks his lips and measures his words before he says, “So many things I wanna do with you.” Louis shifts and Harry groans as their dicks slide together. 

“That’s alright, babe,” Louis assures him, leaning forward and grinding down until Harry lets out another desperate whine, his biceps straining against Louis’ hold. “I’ll give you all of them,” he promises before taking Harry’s earlobe between his teeth and giving it a tug.

“Shit,” Harry breathes, hips thrusting for friction that doesn’t seem to be quite enough, never enough. “Wanna come now, though,” he pouts, if it’s possible to pout while looking completely debauched and needy at the same time. 

Pulling back enough to wrap a hand around Harry’s cock, Louis offers Harry a wink, a taste of his own playful medicine really, and says, “We’ve got all night. You can come more than once,” he says, slowing working his hand down and back up Harry’s cock a few torturous times. “In fact, I’d quite like it if you did, I think.”

It’s all Harry needs to throw his head back, lip bitten white beneath his teeth, hips working in tandem with Louis’ hand to get himself off. In the end, Louis is barely moving, watching in awe as Harry fucks into Louis’ fist, mumbling curses and pinching his own nipples until he comes with the sweetest little groan Louis has ever heard.

“There it is,” Louis whispers against Harry’s ear. “So good for me, aren’t you?” 

For all that people tell him he can be a bossy little shit sometimes, Louis has never really been one for dominating in the bedroom. He likes to be manhandled, likes to top just as often, but he’s never found himself holding someone through an orgasm, offering words of comfort while they continue to shake beneath him. He’s known since day one that Harry was something. He’s just now starting to realize that he’s something rather special.

Harry’s hand drifts lazily down Louis’ back, his eyes still lolling about, unfocused and lovely, as he pushes on Louis’ ass. “You,” he says, rolling his head a bit to catch Louis’ mouth in a sloppy kiss. “Come now.”

Laughing at the haphazard and bleary command, Louis rocks back against Harry’s hand and then down against his hip, slicking his own cock against the come and the sweat on Harry’s belly as he moves. His heart is hammering in his chest as he works faster, rutting and grunting like an animal when Harry begins to tease a finger along the crack of Louis’ ass.

“Can I fuck you later?” Harry asks, and it’s so genuine and open and innocent. There’s no reason that it should be the question that sends stars exploding behind Louis’ eyelids, but it is. 

He hisses a long _yes_ against Harry’s collarbone, teeth sinking into the tender skin there, as he comes, shaking with it for as long, maybe longer, than Harry did. All the while, Harry whispers in a s sweet little voice, _shh, shh, Louis, you’re alright, love, shh_. 

He knew it from the beginning, Louis did. He was fucked the minute he met Harry Styles. But if this is how it feels, he can’t be bothered to complain.

*

“Would you stop that?” Harry chides, his hand clamping heavy and tight against Louis’ thigh as the limo eases to a stop in front of the theater. “You are going to be fine. You have done this before, you tit,” he teases.

Louis wills his legs to stop shaking as he nods. “Right. I’m going to be fine. I’ve done this before.”

Except he hasn’t done this before. Showing up to other people’s red carpet events, walking and spewing sound bytes for journalists he’s never met is easy when it has nothing to do with him at all. He’s the star of this film, though. 

He’s the face that’s selling this film, the actor that is being critically acclaimed for it, and even that is all fine and good. He’s seen his work praised in the papers, the telly series has always been well-received - but this is so, so different.

“Look at me,” Harry says, resting his finger under Louis’ chin until he turns and focuses on the intent eyes staring back at him. “You are a genius. This is your night. You’re going to smash it.”

“It’s our night,” Louis says, heartbeat steadying the longer he stares at Harry’s calm face. 

Because that’s the thing. It’s not his night at all. He’s the face of a project that means everything to Harry, Niall, and Zayn. He’ll get the credit and the praise for his performance, for the outcome of a truly great film, but it’s not about him at all. 

Niall wrote the words Louis said. Zayn created the intergalactic world that he played in. Harry meticulously crafted and carefully sculpted Louis until he looked like someone else entirely. This night is about these three guys who dreamt another world into existence, who fought to bring it to life, who _allowed_ him to be a part of it.

It’s about Liam forcing him to read the script in the first place and Eleanor assuring him that he would ace it and Ben agreeing to cast him and to his telly mates for supporting him through it. It’s about the teamwork and the camaraderie he’s always loved and craved in this business, all of it coming together around him, and knowing that the bloody focus of this entire night is going to be on him. It’s not what Louis wants this night to be about at all.

“Hey,” Harry says, leaning forward until their foreheads are pressed together, until all Louis can see from head on and both sides, is Harry. “Who in this car right now knows a good face when he sees one? Who’s job is to know faces?”

“Yours.”

“That’s right. And we could not have picked a better face to represent our film. You have the best face I know.”

The emotion is getting a bit out of hand, Louis thinks. Snorting, he pulls back and pushes Harry away. “You say that to all the girls,” he teases.

And Harry laughs, wide open and full of so much joy. “I love you,” he says.

It’s not the first time he’s said it, but it’s so easy for Harry, so effortless and thoughtless and careless. It’s as though he never considers _not_ saying it. 

“Love you,” Louis answers, swooping in to press a quick kiss to Harry’s full lips as the car eases to a stop.

“We all love you,” Zayn teases from his spot across the car. He nudges Niall and rolls his eyes toward Liam before returning his attention to Louis. “Can you two please pry yourselves apart long enough to not embarrass us in front of all these people? Thanks.”

“You three will go first,” Liam instructs Niall, Harry, and Zayn, “And then Louis will follow. Harry and Zayn, if you can help move Niall along, don’t let him spend too much time with any one outlet, please. I’ll be with Louis, of course.”

Obviously, as the director and star of the film, Louis and Niall will get the bulk of the attention tonight, as well as the other actors who are already walking the carpet as they sit here, planning. Louis doesn’t like it, but he accepts it as part of the machine.

Except. “I want Harry with me,” Louis insists, reaching for Harry’s hand.

“I can go with them,” Harry argues. 

On the one hand, it does make sense. The three of them conceived this film together so it would make absolute sense for them to walk the carpet with Niall. Still, Louis says, “You’re my date. I want my boyfriend with me out there.” He cuts a fond smile toward Liam and says, “Besides, you’re shit at calming my nerves.”

Liam throws his arms out and shakes his head. “Fine. Whatever. Do what you want, diva.” He’s laughing, though, so Louis just flips him off with a wink as the limo doors are pulled open.

When he steps out, greeted by the screams of fans and the flashbulbs of a hundred cameras, Louis sidesteps his intended mark and reaches for Harry’s hand, pulling him into the spotlight. He motions for the others to join him as well, for a quick photo or two before they’re pulled apart and into the fray. 

He can do this. He’s got a team of amazing friends and co-workers at his side, a film to promote, and a filthy hot boyfriend to go home with when it’s all over. It’s not the life he dreamed of as a kid, but it’s pretty damn close and also a million times better.


End file.
